Art Blogging: Fernando Botero

Fernando Botero (1932- ) is a Colombian painter and sculptor. As a boy, he studied to be a matador, but later studied the fine arts in Medellin. Botero was most heavily influenced by Rivera, Siqueiros, and Orozco. Later, in Madrid and Paris, he was shaped by Picasso, Gauguin, and Goya. His work can be broadly classed as Neo-Figurative, which is the application of the Expressionist Revival to figure studies. Botero is noted for painting his subjects as obese, a trend that he attributes toward the individual artist's intuitive search for a central form. He recently made headlines for an exhibit critical of Abu Ghraib.

The first Botero that I ever saw was this one: Reclining Figure at the Birmingham Museum of Art. It is the crowning piece of a marvelous sculpture garden on the roof of the first floor.




The General and His Family.








Drinking Man.